Richard studied and trained in molecular neuroscience at Oxford and University of London in the UK before joining the Merck Sharp and Dohme Neuroscience Research Centre in 2000. Richard joined GSK in 2006 and relocated to Singapore where he established the GSK Singapore R&D Centre pharmacology laboratory. He later became department head overseeing the initiation of new projects to build a discovery pipeline as well as leading in vitro and in vivo biology to support a portfolio of preclinical drug discovery programs focusing on neurodegenerative disorders e.g., motor neuron disease and Huntington’s disease.

More recently Richard was CSO at Auspherix Ltd, a company that was developing a novel class of antibiotic. In 2018, Richard co-founded NRG Therapeutics Ltd which is developing novel inhibitors of the mitochondrial permeability transition pore for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease.